a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Jazz Introduce Randy Foye

Randy Foye** At the end of the day, when I sat down with my wife and some of my family members, understood that this was the perfect place for me to take my career as a basketball player to the next level…I played a lot last year with a big guy that got double-teamed, and I got a lot of open threes from that. I played with Al [Jefferson] for two years; I played with Mo Williams for a year and a half. So that was something that I understood coming here that there was a need for me here, and so that’s why I jumped on board.

** I texted [Mo Williams] first saying “Congratulations on getting to place where you can start” or whatever, and when it went down for me, he hit me back 23 days later saying, “Congratulations, man.”

**On position: No one has spoken to me about playing possibly at the point guard position, but if you know my career, when I first came into the league I was a two. Then I went to playing all point guard, then I went back to two. So I feel comfortable playing both. [Which do you prefer?] I like to play the two, but if I need to play the one, I’ll definitely play the one.

**Expectations for minutes: I gotta sit down and talk with coach Corbin, and you know, it’s not about minutes as of now, because we have to sit down and talk about what’s the vision of the team. I know they were a Playoff team last year; I know this year with the pieces that were added we’re definitely a Playoff team. But we still have to go out there and play hard. Trust me though, I want to play a lot.

**Back story: My moms had me when she was around 15 years old. So she was already too young to raise a child on her own anyway, so I was basically with my grandmother, who was into the street life as well. I don’t know what type of drugs she used. She used drugs, but she took care of us as best as she could. I remember my moms being there at my kindergarten graduation, and I just remember first grade year, she was gone…No one’s really saying anything, and when I got to the age of nine or ten, I kinda put things together, and [my grandmother] sat me down and explained to me actually what happened…

I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t perfect. I struggled in school with it. I struggled just to a point where if someone made a joke or something, I was furious. And I was always a bigger kid in the group, and so it got to a point where I got into a couple altercations. But after a while, I said, “This have to stop.” About seventh to eighth grade year, just saying these altercations have to stop, and I have to learn from it and grow from it.

**On sharing his back story: I like telling my life story, because it might be someone out there who’s going through the same thing that I’m going through or the same thing that I went through, and saying to themselves, “I can’t make it.” And if they hear me speak about it and me being a husband, a father, graduated from college, lottery pick, successful in the NBA, then they say they can do it too.

**Off-days for the Foye family and “Why Utah?”: We’re homebodies. That’s why everyone was like, “Why Utah?” [and] I’m like, “Why not Utah?” We’re homebodies. We stay in the house…just talking to different people, Utah was the best place.

This quote just cracked me up.

**On the Randy Foye Foundation: I just try to give back. I just try to be a mentor, a big brother, that helps younger kids understand that I was in the same situation as you guys growing up. I didn’t have parents. I struggled. It was tough for me. But at the end of the day, I always had blind faith understanding that if I did what I was supposed to do, if I worked hard, that I would ultimately be in a position where I would be able to be successful, and that’s something I try to pass along to them.

**What was Kevin O’Connor’s sale pitch? That I was needed…Kevin O’Connor was really active around the draft time [in 2006] to get me. I went earlier in the draft [before the Jazz’s pick, which became Ronnie Brewer]. Couple trade talks when I was in Minnesota that he was trying to do, that I knew about, and then the first free agency I was really close to coming here…I’m just saying to myself it’s meant to be.

Kevin O’Connor**Why Foye? I think versatility…and toughness. You know, he also shoots the ball. He’s improved every year, at three-point shooting.* You know, somebody, somebody in this group said we might need some shooting this year, so we tried to get a little bit of it…You know, three years ago when he signed the original deal with, with the Clippers, we were very interested and we weren’t in a position to make an offer…it just didn’t work out because of timing. This time, it did work out because of timing.

* Actually…

**Only way to learn is by example: [The young guys] are going to watch [Foye] practice. They’re going to watch him compete in practice. They’re going to watch him compete in the game, and they’re going to learn from that. You know, the mentoring and all that stuff, I think, you know, the only way you learn is [from other people’s] example.

**If this works out the way you project, it could be an incredible bargain…: No, I, I, I, you know what, I, I, I, I don’t like to put it as, as a bargain. I just think, you know, from, from a market point of view, this is where it’s at and hopefully, hopefully it’s not just this year. That’s not what we’re looking for. We’re looking for, for long-term, and, you know, we’ll have, we should have money next year in some way, shape, or form, and, and, you know, [Foye’s agent] Steven [Heumann] and I had a conversation about it, and we, we, we think this is going to be a longer-term fit than one year.

**On point guards: I think you look at the way the league is structured right now, you know, everyone’s got a “scoring point guard.” Everyone’s got this, or got that. I, I think, I think we’ve got basketball players, and coach will figure out a way.

KOC on 6/23 on whether he’s looking for a scorer or distributor in a point guard:

I think we’ve always had pretty good success with distributors, but the way the league is going now and the fact that defensively, you really can’t touch a guy out front, then you’ve got to be able to get the ball to the rim and score some points ’cause you know the other guy’s gonna score.

**On the Jazz’s weak road play last season: Adding the ability to shoot the basketball, and adding some veterans, is gonna help us*…young guys have a tough time [“competing” at the end of road games], and hopefully they’ll learn.

* This perfectly describes Raja Bell and Josh Howard. Just sayin’.

**On the Jazz’s three new players and all of them wanting to be in Utah: It’s like choosing a college. When you choose a college yourself and your parents don’t say, “You better go to so-and-so”…they made the decision on where they wanna go. And this has been a real positive.

…except two of the three landed in Utah via trades…

Flashback
KOC on May 21, 2012: Some of the players, whether it’s Alec or Gordon [or] Devin, those guys have got to spend the summer and improve their 3-point shooting. It’s gotta come from within. And then what additions do we need?

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Lol, bitter moni today? :) The “improved every year” quote killed me too. On the last one though, I’d say getting those guys is an incentive to the “coming from within” thing. I will never use a quote in which KOC says he expects Hayward, Burks, Favors and Kanter to get better against him. :)

With the current overload of decent players and gGiven how much we trust Ty’s rotations, our best chance is that the young guys deviate so much from the norm that Ty can’t help but play them, like Favors eventually did last season.

I also never had issues with those two. My issue has always been with how Ty used/handled them.

I can forgive most of the 180s, I don’t think he’s got a very easy job giving those interviews. Whatever he says can put him in a position of disadvantage with players, agents and other GMs. So, keeping it fully coherent to us fans who remember what he says isn’t the top priority. The “improved every year” was a true gafe ans is on another level, of course.